A panel of coastal experts organized specifically to help catapult some critical restoration work out of planning boards into development was briefed for hours Wednesday on the varying status of 15 projects proposed for the Pontchartrain Basin.

"We want our coastal experts to identify the projects that can be built quickly," said Tim Doody, president of the regional levee authority."We want our coastal experts to identify the projects that can be built quickly," said Tim Doody, president of the regional levee authority. The group appointed the five-member coastal panel to gather and evaluate all projects proposed for the region - and then "light a fire" under the ones that can be executed in the shortest period of time.

"It's become to clear to our board that we now need to refocus our efforts on (getting) the higher level of protection that we believe can be achieved by coastal restoration," Doody said. "And we need to speed up the process."

A wide range of projects were outlined Wednesday by an array of engineers and scientists, from the diversion and even re-diversion of fresh water and sediment into dead and dying wetlands and swamps to the construction of innovative breakwaters and oyster reefs to help grow more land and reduce storm surge.

"We've been asked to identify projects that are ready to go now or in the very near future," said engineer and coastal panelist Carlton Dufrechou, longtime head of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation who now executive director of the Causeway Commission.

"We are going to champion implementation, and if there's a roadblock to the implementation of your project, we're here to try and help you move it," Dufrechou told the group.

Other panelists include: biologist Steve Mathies, executive director of the state Office of Coastal Protection and Restoration; biologist Mark Schexnayder, a coastal adviser with the LSU AgCenter and its Sea Grant College program who also coordinates Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts on behalf of the AgCenter chancellor; and coastal scientist John Lopez, the basin foundation's science director whose recent report for the Obama administration said that despite years of effort, only two of the foundation's nine highest-priority restoration projects have been completed.

The April 20 meeting will begin at 10:30 a.m. in the second flood hall of the Lake Vista Community Center, 6500 Spanish Ford Blvd. in New Orleans.

Sheila Grissett can be reached at sgrissett@timespicayune.com or 504.467.1746.